Deductive Reasoning

I like all the issues that are coming out in this dicussion. But I find a lot of the reactions very knee-jerk. First of all, the quote, "most researchers in this area believe -- that biology plays a bigger role in [differences in ability in mathematical and scientific achievement] than socialization does," ought to give us pause. If this is common amongst researchers - who, I'm guessing, if they had any intention, was the opposite intention, to prove that men and women biologically are equal at math and science - what are we saying? We're saying they are wrong because we think they are wrong? We're starting out with a hypothesis and based on no research, drawing a conclusion, because we wish it to be true or think that it is true because "research" has been flawed in the past. That's simply lazy. And it also pins an undue amount of blame of the discrepancy between men and women math and science professors on societal forces, when in fact, they might not be the sole reason for the discrepancy. Truth, unfortunately, is not what we wish to be true true, but that which can be proven.

**Important disclaimer - this is not to say that men are more biologically better at math than women is THE TRUTH. It is simply to say that the REASON more men succeed in the academic fields of math and science has MORE to do with biological predisposition than whatever societal reasons there are for fewer women in the profession. Both factor in, yet people want to deny that biology has any factor, simply because it's easier to blame society.

And secondly, on the title of this passage, this narrow look at men and women in the academic profession of math and science does not in any way extend to the issue Kevin brings up about opportunities for poor urban folks versus rich suburban folks. Undoubtedly, rich people have more opportunities than poor people, and I doubt if anyone wants to make an argument that rich people are biologically predisposed to being rich and poor people are somehow inferior because of biology. This is reductive reasoning and is most commonly used these days to espouse what I call nihilistic utopia. It starts out with the premise that society is inherently corrupt, and that anything unfair about the status quo has to do with societal and historical injustices.

This form of logic took shape during the build up to the Iraq war and the basic argument was this: well, if we invade and occupy Iraq, what is stopping us from invading and occupying Syria, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, etc? The conclusion - we cannot invade Iraq because it will set a precedent. This is reductive. The act of invading and occupying and helping to transform Iraq into a self-governed country, rather than a fascist dictatorship, in no way NECESSITES doing the same in any other country. The entire concept of precedent is based upon the precedent SUCCEEDING. We do not continue to do things wrong simply because we did before. If we were making a film and shot at a noisy but beautiful location, there are two potential outcomes: The scene would work despite the sound or the scene wouldn't work because the sound was too bad. If it were the former, we would choose to shoot at the location again for a similar movie. If it were the later, we would remember to not shoot at a noisy location again.

The alternative plan, to the nihilistic utopian, is to never shoot a movie at all because they can never find a perfect location.

The alternative, of course, cannot be simplified to catering to the status quo, accusations of culteral imperialism, or neoconservatism, or whatever hip words the nihilistic utopians want to call anyone who disagrees with them. Some of these charges may be true, but let me point out another way of looking at society...

1) Society is inherently IMPERFECT (major difference from being corrupt, which implies intention)

2) For a society to make choices, it inevitably choose between the lesser of two evils. In the case of women versus men in the sciences - we have a couple of broad choices. We can assume that men and women are equal biologically and then set up a system that REGARDLESS of aptitude tests or qualifications or any of the traditional methods of measuring competence, that we create quotas - the best 100 men and best 100 women become science and math professors. This is not unheard of, we have similar policies in the University with respect to men's and women's sports called Title 9, allowing equal number of scholarships to men and women in sports, despite a lot more sporting interest from men and women. This is why USC does not have a men's soccer team. Or, instead, we have the current system, using imperfect methods of aptitude and competence measurement and hire the best 200 math and science professors, regardless of their gender. Each approach has it's problems, the first approach throws out our accumulated knowledge about aptitude, because of it's flaws and forces us to "start over" with assumptions that we hope are accurate. The second approach is subject to historical and societal prejustices. The question for us is - which is better?

Would someone be a better filmmaker if they have never seen a movie or filmed a movie? They certainly would not be jaded by a male-centric history of motion picture making. Or would someone be a better filmmaker if they had seen the canon of films and studied how a male-dominated industry works and offered their own version of a jaded and corrupt and awful system, that was influenced by this corruption?